Ars sat down with Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt to ask about the design of Forza …

It's been a couple of months since Forza Motorsport 4 arrived in stores and set a new benchmark for console racing. This week, Turn 10 released the "December IGN Pack," the third in a series of six monthly DLC car packs. December's DLC is a good mix of classics—I think Managing Editor Eric Bangeman will be happy to see his old Alfa (Editor's note: I'm happy to see a representation of an Alfa in good working order, something I didn't always experience as an owner)—and modern metal. They've also released a title update that fixes a number of bugs and exploits, which you can read about here. We also had a chance to talk to Dan Greenawalt, the game's lead developer, to ask him some follow-up questions after our review.

Dan was surprised about the lack of coverage of one feature in the game: the built-in voice recognition via Kinect. I'll admit my own failing here, as I didn't even realize it was present, otherwise I'd surely have mentioned it in the review. Saying "Xbox" launches the menu, and you can tell the game to take you straight to the next race, to your garage, to the Rivals section, and so on. It's a huge time-saver for navigating the game, as you skip having to navigate through multiple UI levels to get where you want to go.

Talking to Dan about how people are using different aspects of the game lead to an interesting discussion about the analytics that Turn 10 has built into the game to provide them with feedback. After they shipped Forza Motorsport 2, the team had lots of questions about how people were playing the game. At the time, the only way to get that was through customer satisfaction surveys, but these can be anecdotal and subject to selection bias. So in Forza Motorsport 3, they started adding analytic measurements to see how the entire user base was getting on with the game. The data they've gotten back from the game has influenced the design of Forza Motorsport 4. For example, they noticed that players were having to go through three or four steps if they were browsing their garage and wanted to apply a paint job or sell something in the auction house. As a result, in Forza Motorsport 4 these have been hyperlinked into the garage to make a player's life easier.

We also spoke a little bit about how they handle modeling some of the newer generation of highly computerized cars—such as the Nissan GT-R, Ferrari 458 Italia, or McLaren MP4-12C—where complex electronic traction control and stability control systems can direct power (or apply the brakes) to individual wheels. Obviously car manufacturers have spent a large amount of time and money creating these electronic driving aids, and I wondered if the game reproduced them or if their proprietary nature made this impossible.

As it turns out, it's actually easier to put these into the game than it is in real life. That's because most of the work that goes into designing those systems in the real world concerns getting the car to understand what's happening with each wheel so it knows which one needs more power directed to it, or which one needs braking. According to Dan, "the challenge is nowhere near as hard as you think, once you understand we are the Matrix." Since Turn 10 is modeling the entire environment, the game knows exactly what's going on with each wheel, so it's able to recreate the behavior of these systems realistically.

Of course, you have the option of turning these systems on or off on every car, even those that never came with ABS or traction control. Another one of these general assists that Forza lets you play with is using a manual clutch, which is why it's an option even on cars that have semiautomatic or completely automatic transmissions. Some players have criticized this, since gear changes in the game are significantly faster when using the clutch than not. This was a conscious decision by Turn 10, as it adds another level for players to master. An unfortunate consequence for gamers using a wheel is that it takes a lot longer to move your leg than it does to just hit a button on the controller, but there's not really any simple way to have the game correct for this. Dan did say that they're working on changes to the clutch state at the beginning of a race, which will mean those of us not using three pedals will be able to be competitive in drag races.

As for this month's DLC, the IGN pack includes the following vehicles:

26 Reader Comments

Talking to Dan about how people are using different aspects of the game lead to an interesting discussion about the analytics that Turn 10 has built into the game to provide them with feedback. After they shipped Forza Motorsport 2, the team had lots of questions about how people were playing the game. At the time, the only way to get that was through customer satisfaction surveys, but these can be anecdotal and subject to selection bias. So in Forza Motorsport 3, they started adding analytic measurements to see how the entire user base was getting on with the game. The data they've gotten back from the game has influenced the design of Forza Motorsport 4.

I found that bit about the Alfa hilarious given the time I noticed a commotion outside my house and looked out to see a red Alfa convertible in the road on fire less than 10 yards from my MR2 (parked in the driveway). The owner lived up the street, made it about 50 yards before he had to bail as the car just caught fire...

What pissed me off about Forza 4 was how some cars are exclusive to certain pre-orders, limited editions, and/or retail stores. The 2011 Subaru WRX STi is used in the main game in pictures for certain events, yet that car is only available through a pre-order. I can't buy it in the game, even though I constantly see pictures of it for the Subaru events.

At least let me buy them somehow. As a Subaru fan this was particularly disappointing, but it just seems to be a trend of giving gamers less and expecting them to pay more. Resistance 3 may have topped the cake here - one of there content packs includes a game mode where your team must capture and control certain control points, and your score increases the longer you hold them. Are you kidding me? Something like that should just be a part of the game. There is nothing even remotely innovative or new about that, except that you need to pay extra for it. I wonder how the developers truly feel about this kind of practice that is no doubt a result of the suits up top.

Having owned two different Fieros in my lifetime (long story), it's the one car I really miss from Gran Turismo, and it's amusing to see it now on Forza. Not going to buy a 360 and Forza 4 for it though.

Some players have criticized this, since gear changes in the game are significantly faster when using the clutch than not. This was a conscious decision by Turn 10, as it adds another level for players to master.

It's a valid criticism if you're representing the game as a sim. Turn 10 aren't simulating what it's like to drive a PDK or seamless shift car, having a manual clutch (with preformance boost) lets you know that you're still playing a game.

Next time you talk to him could you ask about the possibility of getting a better launch sequence (and not just for manual clutch), and maybe better lap time reports at the end of a race (sector by sector times would be great!)

I'm still not clear as to whether electronic driving aids specific to a certain vehicle are modeled realistically or not. The article raises the question, but then only quotes the developer as having said implementing those aids is easy. Well that's fine and all... but it doesn't answer the original question. I take the developers response to mean every vehicle in the game uses Turn10's same algorithm for TCS and SCS, rather than the proprietary electronic behavior of each vehicle. Which is fine by me! :)

I just wish there was an option under 'Diffculty/Assists' to set TCS, SCS and ABS for that matter to 'realistic'. Meaning, if the real car ships with some form of that assist, then turn on the in-game version of it. And further, if you set the assists to 'realistic' wouldn't it be nice if you could disable those systems under tuning setups? Ah well...

Next time you talk to him could you ask about the possibility of getting a better launch sequence (and not just for manual clutch), and maybe better lap time reports at the end of a race (sector by sector times would be great!)

And horsepower/torque/transmission graphs where the graduations actually mean something?

What I would really like to see in those games (ie Forza/GT) is a "natural" mode. By that, I mean a mode where you'd get the car in the condition it was released: with/without ABS, TCS, ESP, type of gearbox, etc. Of course, as in a real car, you could disable them if you wished. I think it would be great to really feel the evolution from the older, all manual, high-perfomance cars to the modern electronic-ladden wonders.

I'm still not clear as to whether electronic driving aids specific to a certain vehicle are modeled realistically or not. The article raises the question, but then only quotes the developer as having said implementing those aids is easy. Well that's fine and all... but it doesn't answer the original question. I take the developers response to mean every vehicle in the game uses Turn10's same algorithm for TCS and SCS, rather than the proprietary electronic behavior of each vehicle. Which is fine by me!

Going back to my notes and the recording of the interview, I think his point was that torque vectoring and eDiffs are implemented, but if I get a chance to clarify that I shall.

Quote:

I just wish there was an option under 'Diffculty/Assists' to set TCS, SCS and ABS for that matter to 'realistic'. Meaning, if the real car ships with some form of that assist, then turn on the in-game version of it. And further, if you set the assists to 'realistic' wouldn't it be nice if you could disable those systems under tuning setups? Ah well...

moohbear wrote:

What I would really like to see in those games (ie Forza/GT) is a "natural" mode. By that, I mean a mode where you'd get the car in the condition it was released: with/without ABS, TCS, ESP, type of gearbox, etc. Of course, as in a real car, you could disable them if you wished. I think it would be great to really feel the evolution from the older, all manual, high-perfomance cars to the modern electronic-ladden wonders.

The voice control features are slightly great, in that they only half-work.

Without a doubt, being 4 levels deep into a sub-menu and getting to jump to another area is great. The problem lies in that you can't directly access every area from every other menu, so the utility is hit-or-miss.

For example, if I want to go from tuning a car to the Leaderboards*, I can't make the direct jump. I have to "Xbox . . . Community" and then "Xbox . . . leaderboards". The jump from tuning to the Community hub is faster with the voice commands, but selecting Leaderboards from the Community menu is faster with the controller. Moreover, the only way to know which menus are context-specific is to try it . . . and fail . . . then try again (hoping the fault was just a bad voice command recognition) . . . and fail again . . . then poke about to reveal the bottleneck . . . then realize you've wasted more time with the voice commands than without them. For every time voice commands saved me time, there is another example where they've cost me time (and annoyance), and as a result I've just stopped using them altogether.

*This is an example from memory, so I can't guarantee that Leaderboards isn't directly accessible from Tuning. It was either Leaderboards, Storefront, or Auction House. The point is, one of those three is directly accessible from Tuning (or was it Painting?), one of the others isn't. As all three are at the same level of the Community menu, being able to jump to one and not the other seems arbitrary and counter-productive.

I'm still not clear as to whether electronic driving aids specific to a certain vehicle are modeled realistically or not. The article raises the question, but then only quotes the developer as having said implementing those aids is easy. Well that's fine and all... but it doesn't answer the original question. I take the developers response to mean every vehicle in the game uses Turn10's same algorithm for TCS and SCS, rather than the proprietary electronic behavior of each vehicle. Which is fine by me!

Going back to my notes and the recording of the interview, I think his point was that torque vectoring and eDiffs are implemented, but if I get a chance to clarify that I shall.

Quote:

I just wish there was an option under 'Diffculty/Assists' to set TCS, SCS and ABS for that matter to 'realistic'. Meaning, if the real car ships with some form of that assist, then turn on the in-game version of it. And further, if you set the assists to 'realistic' wouldn't it be nice if you could disable those systems under tuning setups? Ah well...

moohbear wrote:

What I would really like to see in those games (ie Forza/GT) is a "natural" mode. By that, I mean a mode where you'd get the car in the condition it was released: with/without ABS, TCS, ESP, type of gearbox, etc. Of course, as in a real car, you could disable them if you wished. I think it would be great to really feel the evolution from the older, all manual, high-perfomance cars to the modern electronic-ladden wonders.

I'm with both of you on that one.

Tossing in another vote for you to find out... I've been curious about this since the last forza game... I always play with no assists, but it's been rather ambiguous about if you enable tcs/stm in the old muscle machines from yore, do you all of a sudden have the GT-R computer in a 40 year old monster? Or a more limited form of tcs...

can the Forza guys answer this for me. for some feature like traction control. yes, you can set it as a global option for all your cars, regardless of whether the car actually offers traction control in real life.

but let's say I want to drive a car that doesn't offer it in real life, is there a way to do this without having to go to Wikipedia or some auto site to determine whether or not this feature is available in the car? I don't want to have to keep mental notes on what car has what features. just give the features that the car can offer in real life as maybe some type of "default features for car X".

I understand having driving aids to make it easier for people to play the game. But I can't just turn it off globally, for example, traction control. Because that's unfair to the expensive fancy cars that do have it as standard in real life. I want to turn it off only for cars that don't have traction control.

can the Forza guys answer this for me. for some feature like traction control. yes, you can set it as a global option for all your cars, regardless of whether the car actually offers traction control in real life.

but let's say I want to drive a car that doesn't offer it in real life, is there a way to do this without having to go to Wikipedia or some auto site to determine whether or not this feature is available in the car? I don't want to have to keep mental notes on what car has what features. just give the features that the car can offer in real life as maybe some type of "default features for car X".

I understand having driving aids to make it easier for people to play the game. But I can't just turn it off globally, for example, traction control. Because that's unfair to the expensive fancy cars that do have it as standard in real life. I want to turn it off only for cars that don't have traction control.

thats a great idea, I'm surprised no one else in this comment thread came up with it, twice.

Talking to Dan about how people are using different aspects of the game lead to an interesting discussion about the analytics that Turn 10 has built into the game to provide them with feedback. After they shipped Forza Motorsport 2, the team had lots of questions about how people were playing the game. At the time, the only way to get that was through customer satisfaction surveys, but these can be anecdotal and subject to selection bias. So in Forza Motorsport 3, they started adding analytic measurements to see how the entire user base was getting on with the game. The data they've gotten back from the game has influenced the design of Forza Motorsport 4.

Oh boy, Forza-gate.

Oh boy, douche-bag gate!

Hey, look. I can make inane testaments too (even followed up by stupid emoticons)!

Anywho. I still wish for open peripheral stuffs! Especially seeing as the PC is a secondary platform for racing sims these days.

Talking to Dan about how people are using different aspects of the game lead to an interesting discussion about the analytics that Turn 10 has built into the game to provide them with feedback. After they shipped Forza Motorsport 2, the team had lots of questions about how people were playing the game. At the time, the only way to get that was through customer satisfaction surveys, but these can be anecdotal and subject to selection bias. So in Forza Motorsport 3, they started adding analytic measurements to see how the entire user base was getting on with the game. The data they've gotten back from the game has influenced the design of Forza Motorsport 4.

Oh boy, Forza-gate.

Oh boy, douche-bag gate!

Hey, look. I can make inane testaments too (even followed up by stupid emoticons)!

So you don't have a problem with what Carrier IQ did? After all the purpose of both is for a better customer experience.

I'm still not clear as to whether electronic driving aids specific to a certain vehicle are modeled realistically or not. The article raises the question, but then only quotes the developer as having said implementing those aids is easy. Well that's fine and all... but it doesn't answer the original question. I take the developers response to mean every vehicle in the game uses Turn10's same algorithm for TCS and SCS, rather than the proprietary electronic behavior of each vehicle. Which is fine by me! :)

I was intrigued by this too, and the article left it open-ended. It's intriguing to think that we're at a stage where a computer game might be the best environment for a car manufacturer to tweak and tune their driver aids. I find it amazing that we're at the stage where we can model specific software idiosyncrasies in real-world cars.

Talking to Dan about how people are using different aspects of the game lead to an interesting discussion about the analytics that Turn 10 has built into the game to provide them with feedback. After they shipped Forza Motorsport 2, the team had lots of questions about how people were playing the game. At the time, the only way to get that was through customer satisfaction surveys, but these can be anecdotal and subject to selection bias. So in Forza Motorsport 3, they started adding analytic measurements to see how the entire user base was getting on with the game. The data they've gotten back from the game has influenced the design of Forza Motorsport 4.

Oh boy, Forza-gate.

Oh boy, douche-bag gate!

Hey, look. I can make inane testaments too (even followed up by stupid emoticons)!

So you don't have a problem with what Carrier IQ did? After all the purpose of both is for a better customer experience.

I think analytic data capturing how I play Forza is on a different order of magnitude compared to analytic data from my cellphone that records where I've been (geolocation), who I talk to, and so on. Not everything is a privacy fiasco.